Marketing Matters is a blog that tells marketing stories from an industry, academic and student's perspective. We confront and debate today’s business trends. Views expressed by the blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Sydney Business School.

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Driven by the revolutionary development of technology, digital marketing, and particularly social media, has risen drastically over the last decade. The digital age has made such a large and lasting impact that we tend to expect to see all creative marketing for large brands done in this space.
However, last September, a famous European chocolate brand, Milka, launched a campaign in France and Germany which took the brand’s message directly to customers. It was quite a creative campaign and, in my view, worthy of studying.

The campaign, “Last Square”, involved the production of 13 million chocolate bars with one square intentionally missing.

Why? The campaign echoed the brand slogan, “Dare To Be Tend” - the last square of chocolate is always the sweetest and it should be saved for someone special.

How? Buy one Milka chocolate with the package slogan, “Où est passé le dernier carré?” (Where has the last square gone?). You then get the opportunity to send this “last square” to the person you care about most. By logging on to the website, you have the opportunity to enter the code on the package, along with the name and address of that lucky someone. More importantly, you can add in a personalised greeting. The “last square” is then sent to the person you selected, with your lovely message, free of charge.

You can imagine the touching picture when your most special someone receives the unexpected surprise! “Dare to be tender?”

Does the promotion use any hi-tech digital tool? Not really! Does the execution require extra human resources (such as a sales team or promoters in stores)? No. Does the brand use specific media or digital channels to deliver the message, “dare to be tender”? No.

Nevertheless, the message is clear. The campaign sends the brand message directly to audiences in a straightforward way with low cost. It also enhances its branding among loyal consumers and easily offers new customers a trial of the product

The most glamorous part of the campaign is its innovative big idea - “daring to be back” – everything is going “back” – going back to the very original one – the product itself! The novel idea lets the product (with one removed square) tell the story: on the shelf, with a distinctive package (or outstanding defect), rising consumers’ curiosity (interest), encouraging their desire to buy the product because the story has reached a soft spot in their hearts. All of the brand resonance elements of awareness, association, attitude and attachment are packed into the product. Smart and effective!

Monday, 24 March 2014

You probably noticed the aggressive media campaign for the newly rebranded radio station, KIIS FM from 106.5 MIX FM, back in the December – January period. Promotional material ranging from posters slapped on bus stops, YouTube videos, TV advertising and media announcements of Kyle and Jackie-O’s poaching from 2DAY FM built up sufficient hype for the newly rebranded station’s launch on the 20 of January 2014.

A few months down the line, how did the rebranding go? Well, the results were in recently as the commercial radio station announced that it's breakfast show featuring the infamous Kyle and Jackie-O was tied in equal place with WSFM’s Jonesy and Amanda. That’s not all: the audience share for KIIS has jumped 3.3 per cent since the rebranding from MIX FM, giving it a grand total of 9.3 per cent of audience share and making it the second most popular commercial station behind 2GB, and the most popular FM commercial station with an overall audience share of 8.4 per cent. How is 2DAY FM faring? In overall audience share, 2DAY FM has the lowest audience share of all commercial FM stations with a measly 4 per cent. To make matters worse, its breakfast show, which was shown as being in top position in previous radio ratings, has sunk to the bottom of pack.

What made the rebranding so successful?

Funnily enough it was the pair, Kyle and Jackie-O, who were the driving force behind the success of KIIS. Their fan base, which approximately made up 60% 2DAY FM’s listeners, directly followed them across to KIIS. 242,000 listeners were estimated to have made the switch, showing Sydney that despite the controversy of the hosts regarding Kyle Sandiland's behaviour, they still have a massive loyal audience base.

Another success factor was that MIX 106.5, as a smaller station, shared a greater proportion of listeners with 2DAY FM than 2DAY FM did with it. Once elements that people enjoyed about 2DAY FM moved to the new MIX, there was really no reason for the previously split audience to flick back across to 2DAY FM. MIX was already positioned to the 25 to 54 demographic, and their rebranding was done with the intention of capturing and holding more of this target demographic.

This successful example of rebranding has shown that if you strategically identify what your brand is lacking, and go out with the idea of filling this gap, you can achieve great results. MIX FM knew its current demographic; they knew that Kyle and Jackie-O had an active fan base; and they made a gamble as to whether 2DAY FM’s listeners would make the switch to continue listening to their favourite radio show hosts and it definitely paid off. Their efforts to promote the rebranding and showcase their newly poached radio show hosts also shows a well-executed marketing plan of attack that we all, as aspiring marketers, can learn from to apply to new and existing brands that we encounter.

About the Bloggers

Alyce Brierley is a student in the Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney Business School. With a degree in Creative Industries (QUT), she has recently returned to Australia after working for the last six years in Paris as Copywriter and an English Language Consultant. Alyce is a culture, travel, food, and wine enthusiast with a love for learning languages. She is currently working in partnership with a tech start-up in the wine industry as a wine blogger.

Bowie Chen is from China and a current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School. Bowie has several years experience working in FMCG marketing, media (esp. TV station), and consulting firms.

Hazel Chen has 8 years work experience in the Beverage Manufacturing Industry with the role as Technical Leader and Manager, covering Logistics, Marketing, Laboratory and Prototyping function. As a part of Master of Marketing program, she has the confidence to consolidate all the experience with Marketing study to understand overall market to a great extent.